The Case for Hillary Clinton

It’s a Liberty tradition: before a presidential election we invite our authors to make the best case they can for the Democratic candidate, the Libertarian candidate, the Republican candidate, and no candidate at all. In some instances, the best case isn’t one that the authors themselves find the most convincing. C’est la guerre.

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I’m taking one for the team. Somebody has to do this on behalf of Liberty, and I’m the person who has drawn the short straw. I have to make an argument for voting Democrat in 2016.

Yet this is not an impossible argument to make. The reasons may not be compelling (you decide), but they’re not difficult to find. They come in two “baskets,” as Hillary Clinton would say. First, the basket of Trump’s deficiencies; second, the basket of Clinton’s own deficiencies.

“What?” you say.

Just hold on.

The deficiencies of Donald Trump

Trump is a demagogue, on the grand scale. Like most demagogues, he sometimes blusters into the truth about particular issues. But when you look at the scale of his blustering, you see the problem. He is running on a promise to use presidential power to fix everything in America that needs to be fixed. Never mind whether it actually does. I happen to think that most of the problems he has identified are real and serious. But do you want to give anyone, especially a popular leader, the power to cure everything that ails you? Never mind whether his plans would succeed. Lyndon Johnson did not succeed in winning his War on Poverty. Nobody has, and nobody could. But look at the wreckage he left behind him.

So much for Trump. Now for:

The deficiencies of Hillary Clinton

The argument here is that Clinton’s private vices can be regarded as public virtues. After a lifetime of dishonest struggle to make herself attractive to the American people, she has succeeded in making herself loathed by most and disliked by almost all. This is a public benefit. It has taught millions of people to distrust even first ladies.

Trump is running on a promise to use presidential power to fix everything in America that needs to be fixed. Never mind whether it actually does.

Hillary and her husband discovered a way to make tons of money on intended bribes from crony capitalists and obnoxious foreign governments, but it doesn’t appear that they actually accomplished much for their would-be clients. Perhaps the Clintons simply meant to stiff their friends; more likely, they weren’t competent enough to perform any real criminality, at least on a scale that would make it necessary for James Comey to prosecute. (Admittedly, Comey is an idiot in a thousand-dollar suit, a reductio ad absurdum of the Establishment’s claims to righteousness. But this is another good thing about Hillary — the exposure of people like that.) The buffoonery of Mrs. Clinton’s attempted coverups (“Wipe? You mean with a cloth?”) has put the lie to any notion that a Sauron-like intelligence is lurking in Chappaqua, NY — and to the idea that activist politicians at least mean well for the people. They don’t, and the Clintons have contributed very materially toward dispelling that dangerous illusion.

The life of Hillary Clinton has been little more than a series of absurd scandals, punctuated by absurd attempts to do some mighty deed. Take her version of national healthcare (take it, please!). During her husband’s first administration, she proceeded in the most ridiculously complicated manner this side of Rube Goldberg to get the medical industry into her hands and “reform” it. The result was a crushing defeat for her husband in the next congressional election: another public benefit.

There is virtually no prospect of a third Clinton administration being any more successful than the first two in accomplishing the Clintons’ ostensibly progressive ends.

Mrs. Clinton’s current policy proposals would undoubtedly be scary if anybody could make sense of them. That’s what the Sanders people meant when they said she doesn’t “stand for anything.” They were right. Even when she seems to, the evidence of her private communications plainly demonstrates that she doesn’t, or that she stands for the opposite of her announced positions.

There is virtually no prospect of a third Clinton administration being any more successful than the first two in accomplishing the Clintons’ ostensibly progressive ends, and many indications that the actions of the Clinton Operation will be disastrous to itself. This is the normal fate of fanatically self-serving people, and for this we can be grateful to the divine law of retribution.

Looking into my crystal ball — which, as everyone knows, is a flawless oracle — I see Hillary Clinton crippled from the start by recurring scandals, by the well-earned distrust of her confederates, and, above all, by the distrust and disgust of the nation as a whole. If you can’t get a president who believes in liberty, at least you can get a president who is a feckless, bumbling, self-defeating statist. Can you deny that this is Hillary Clinton?

About this Author

Stephen Cox is editor of Liberty, and a professor of literature at the University of California San Diego. His recent books include The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison and American Christianity: The Continuing Revolution. Newly published is Culture and Liberty, a selection of works by Isabel Paterson.

Comments

Jon Harrison

This I think is fair comment, as opposed to Wayland's absurd piece. The choice in 2016 is between a proto-fascist and a hack. Hacks are bad, but fascists are worse. Elect Clinton and you have divided government; not much gets done (Yay!). Elect Trump and you open the floodgates to . . . well, let's just say it'll be bad.

Well stated, Mr. Harrison. It is wishful thinking to imagine that a Trump presidency would be anything less than a disaster for our republic. With another Clinton in the White House, the prospect of government gridlock may be a best-case scenario, but the worst-case scenario is not going to involve a full-out assault on the first amendment, mass deportations, and economic collapse.

Jon Harrison's comments assume Congress remains in the hands of Republicans. That might give us divided government, which I agree is a good thing, but speculation is divided on whether Republicans keep control of Congress.

Fri, 2016-11-04 11:17

Jon Harrison

The Democrats are not going to take over the House. They need to gain 30 seats, which isn't going to happen. Congressional districts were gerrymandered after 2010 in such a way that it's almost impossible for Democrats to take back control. I think they got 53% of the total vote in all House races in 2012, and yet they picked up just a few seats.

As for the Senate, you need 60 votes there to get anything done. The Democrats aren't going to win 14 seats this year. They'll be lucky to get 4 or 5.